I hope I will still be able to get parts for our piece of shit Cavalier.

Wouldn’t worry about it. I’m told they better open up new factories “or else!”

I saw the news early this morning. It sucks, it's always around the holidays too. I have a feeling there will be more announcements in the first quarter of the new year.

they totally shhut down their australian manufacturing arm last year

It might effect our business a bit. Not entirely sure, as we deal with GM Rental Returns. The Impalas and Cruzes will be gone, but most likely replaced with Small SUV's. Edmonton is a long way away from Oshawa. Ontario will have problem. Heard that even Honda Accords and Toyota 4 door sedans are not selling well.

One thing for sure is that all car manufacturers use what I call "creative accounting". "We lost $230 Million last quarter" what is not mentioned is that they spent that on re-tooling a new production run, or upgrading a paint shop.

Is this the beginning of the downturn?

***

You can bet their high ups will get their christmas bonuses as a congratulations for saving the company money!

Funny how this wasn't mentioned weeks ago (pre Nov 6th) when they made the decision.

Where did you see that reported? I can guarantee that the Lordstown plant did not know until Sunday

Gotta wonder why sales are down and GM isn't doing so well.

Quality control?
Outdated designs?
Price increases?
Peeling clearcoat and dimpled paint jobs?
Body panels not lining up or coming apart?
Boards that fail and only fit one model?

Cheap gas, and people are buying Toyota and KIA SUVs

Lol, well maybe but most articles I read were talking about steel prices that put a billion dollar dent in their bottom line.

I think the issue is more that GM (and Ford for that matter) cannot compete with Honda and Toyota and are placing the blame on the public. I just bought a '19 Civic and see plenty of the 10th gen Civics on the road. I do agree that SUV seem to be selling better than cars though.

I see what you did there.

Weeks ago here in Ontario there were some news reports of shifting focus from sedans to other types of vehicles.
I remember thinking 'that means plants will be closing'

It's a combination of losing a billion dollars to the steel tariffs combined with recognizing that their market is split between a) US and Canada buyers mostly buying their SUV's and b) their foreign buyers trending hard toward electric only cars.

I hope no one here is directly affected.

Guess they don;t like the Volt much

Pretty sure it's Obama's fault.

They should have paid their bailout back, instead of awarding large "bonuses" to high level executives...

A product of the Lordstown, Ohio plant. I dated two girls who had Monza's built there....

Compared to other electric cars, the Volt does suck. The rest are ungodly expensive though.

In Aus and NZ most are buying double cab 4wd utes. Not 4 door sedans.

These have just hit our market. 400+ KMs on 1 charge. Full electric.

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Don't worry, GM cars will still be made in China.

Why were they Holden on to that division for so long?

GM Australia told the factory to stop making these till next year as they are not selling on this side of the world

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I just bought one on Friday. The red is amazing.

Well, when the older models are still running great after 300,000 miles, who needs to buy a new one?

Same as Canada. The Government pilled millions and millions to keep people in a job, with GM to take half of the money back to Detroit and shut the factory down any way. Holden / GM is not well liked in Australia at the moment.

Glory Red

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I can't wait to see how a self driving car is loaded and unloaded on a car carrier, if the car has no steering wheel.

Fat people are tired of getting up out of a vehicle... here in ‘merica, we have got so fat we dont like getting up out of a sedan anymore. We would rather roll out of an SUV thats butt high and hit the street walking because you don’t do anything that might cause you to use those pesky abdominal muscles.

But on the closer side of the truth, we do not like having to fall into a sedan when we get in and have to climb out of it to get out. We have given up style and economy to utilitarianism and convenience. Pretty simple math.

Terrible news and most of it is due to the shift from cars to SUV's. Why buy a 30mpg Malibu or Impala when an Equinox for the same price gets the same gas mileage? Who would want the smaller vehicle at that point? What's a shame though is that Chevy Volt production here in Michigan at one of GM's oldest plants is coming to an end in March. Still, GM could manufacture the new Trailblazer at one of the U.S plants that are closing, instead though it will be made in Mexico.

On another note a lot of people currently don't seem to care that much about gas mileage. A lot of people have also been having a blast with a great economy and are buying new expensive SUV's and trucks...that also come with huge loans in most cases. Just wait until the next recession though and / or if gas goes back to $4 a gallon...

Consumer debt is now $837 billion higher today then it was in 2008...We've had a great economy for a decade but I think there's been a ton of overspending by consumers in the form of higher end cars, huge student loans, big houses with big mortgages, etc.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/household-debt-hit-record-high-13-5-trillion-last-quarter-n937216

A good number of people that don't even work for GM will be affected by the plant closures and layoffs. I recall reading an article that said for every 1 GM job that there's 7 others that exist because of it (suppliers for example).

Well, what do ya know, I thought the Volt was a better alternative to the pure electric cars. Small internal combustion engine so the generator to charge battery pack was ideal. You can drive long distances without worrying where to plug in. Bob Lutz needs to come back.

I drive a volt for my commuter. Decent car but next daily driver will be all electric. Most of the people I’ve come across with a volt are switching to all electric in next vehicle. Kinda makes sense to me that it’s run it’s course....

FYI, the Volt is not an electric car, it's a hybrid with a really big battery. Ive been driving one for the last 4 years. They really are great cars.

I wonder if the Volt will last as long with few problems like some of these 300,000 mile Priuses that come in here.

I wouldn't drive one, but the owners seem pretty happy with them.

Never had an issue with my volt. Rock solid at 85k.

I would hope so.

So is our Cavalier. lol.

If it had much more than 100k on it, we would have passed.

Bob Lutz thinks this is a good move by GM.

GM over engineered the snot out of the battery system on the Volts. The upside to this is the battery packs tend to last a long time in the Volt. The downside is there are lots of systems that can break and are complex to fix. My first Volt was in the shop for two weeks once with a bad battery temperature sensor. I lost that car in a flood, otherwise I would still be driving it today. My current Volt that 93k miles on it, and has been trouble free. I plan to keep it until at least 150k miles.

I wasn't commenting on the layoff deal with him coming back. He was responsible for some of the best designs at GM.

I work for a company that hires for some of GM's part suppliers in the US. From what I've been told, this is due to car sales (not truck/SUV) dropping. They will be upping production for truck and SUV. So...it's our fault for buying trucks and SUV's because our machines won't fit in a car.

15,000 layoffs
Plus 15,000 migrants
Equals 30,000 people added to the government rolls...

LET THEM EAT CAKE!!!!!

Mmmmm...cake....

It's not just GM, my company is doing a round of layoffs right now too. They always do around this time (when they do). It's a corporate thing to add that extra knife twist for being a loyal employee.